Thursday, June 19, 2014

Small Towns and Their Hinterlands

India has always had an interesting history
of ancient riverine towns, and entropots on the trade route, at the cusp of
mountains and plains, and rivers and seas. The hinterland is the most
interesting of geographical phenomena, because ancient cities like Benaras,
Gauhati, Gorakhpur, Kochi, for example, would bring to attention not just the
co-existence of various religions, but also of occupations. One only has to
think of the phenomenal variety of production of crafts that many small towns
carry with them, to know that the idea of themodern city or the metropolis is something which speaks demographically
of industrialisation, and artificially produced consumption patterns. Metropoli,
by their very nature, as the Mexican sociologist Manuel Castells showed, are
linked not only to cities of various population density, but also to small
towns and villages. It is the nature of communication networks that allow small
towns to be meshed with a larger more complex and voluminous maze of
populations, with their varied occupations and their social and cultural needs.
India’s villages are now being sought to be denuded by the intensity of massive
modernisation projects with the assumption that the greater volume of
electricity produced by damming rivers, will bring down local populations
through a Malthusian project, which will make villagerslives seem outdated and on the route toself extinction.

Industrialised agriculture, which the so
calledGreen, White and Mulberry
Revolutions propagate are based on the idea of mono agriculture. Punjab and
Gujarat are examples politically of what happens when industrialised
agriculture projects itself as the onlytype of modernisation that is available to the Indian imagination. Tamil
Nadu has offered another way, which is agriculture as sustainable, as a means
of livelihood, and of cross border exchanges, leading to profound nutritionally
substantive indexes. It might be interesting to look at the way in which Tamil
farmers have foregrounded education too, since the time of Nadar freedom
fighters, such as Kamaraj, to premise professionalization as a goal, along with
the contexts of farming, engineering colleges,automobile manufacture and
industrialisation as co-existent occupational zones. The same tradition has
valorised weaving,metal and stone work
as ancient occupations which have a very important role to play. Spiritual
centres also attract tourists, as do dance andmusic asforms of classical and
contemporary discipline. The dialogue between Kerala and Tamil Nadu on the question of dam renovation is probably the most interesting relic of a colonial history, and foregrounds how we think of Agriculture and Tourism in the two states. The Pallakad gap has now completely transformed from verdant hills to a long traffic lined route for trucks going between the two states carrying goods.

It is very important to set up the debates
on what the people want, by conducting studies which are not biased towards
industrialisation as the only way in which modern Indians see their role in a
buoyant economy. The average land holding is two and a half acres, perhaps, but
the constant success of traditional farmers in producing bumper crops, whether
in Nalanda in Bihar or in the former arid zones of Tamil Nadu, have to be
understood within its cultural and historical contexts. With the water crises
and climate changerepresenting itself
continually through modes of adaptation by local farmers, it is necessary to
take the voice of activists into account. The North East which has withstood
varieties of colonialism, including interior colonialism, is now in a precarious
political condition with the appointment of an army chief known to have
disciplinary action being taken against him for vacuous, or even worse,
actively dastardly behaviour against local communities.

When we look at tribal or dalit
communities, we have to be aware of the way in which their world view is
attached to visions of the land as a potent and animistic force. When they are
forced to leave their homes, where they are able to lead frugal lives in
consonance with their beliefs, they are rendered destitute. This is why for
decades the Indian government (bureaucracy) has worked with alleviation of
poverty programmes rather than with thesole idea that forced eviction is the only way that the poor can be
forced into the cities as cheap labour. Industrialised farming will create the
kind of destructive, separatist and entropic violence that India faced in the
1980s, and which continues to be seen in Maoist regions.

Where people are well fed, clothed, educated
and offered employment, the chances of survival of people and freedoms are the
highest. Alongside this, comes the awareness of citizen rights and privileges.
By constantly offering free electricity to urbanites in large cities, so that
their recreational and consumption enhanced lifestyles are protected, we are
doing tremendous damage to the environment and tolocal communities.

Small towns, which have a hinterland in
agriculture, also provide us the best window to tourism, which is one of the
most revenue generating occupations in the globalised world. This permits
people to have the autonomy to choose how and where they wish to live, rather
than competing unthinkingly with theindustrialised West,and which
alsopermits revisiting our pragmatic
orientations with regard to survival strategies.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Soccer asStrategy

Football
is a cult. It brings people together because of the speed of the game, and the
instinctive thinking required by the players, and the split second response by
commentators and couch potatoes equally, as they watch the game. Football is
visceral, because it pounds the senses, wrenches the guts and men and women
fall in love with the players by the numerical signs on their back, as
each one is distinguished by a particular style. Advertisers find this rampant
energy immediately sensual, and so there is a great colourful propoganda about
players and clothes and shoes as much as there is about energy drinks they
consume off field. Since football arouses such passion, the streets become the
immediate playground for the emotions of the audience, as they revel. They
swirl about in search of their cultic heroes, and they become mobs, who drink a
lot, and fight with one another. So football becomes the site of the most
spectacular riots and dishevelment, where the players are assigned the stature
of gods.
Because the blood flows in the veins so fast, football fans are proud of
their feelings, and carry it into the sports stadium. Decorative and patriotic
face paint is a little like war paint, and the noise is also profoundly higher,
since it communicates the individual body as the site of personal and
collective identity.
The real play grounds for footer are in the villages and streets of the urban
jungle. Since young boys are inculcated in the sport very early, their desire
to be known is also very heady, and film makers are happy to make football
films to show how much it means to be a young Maradonna. The vivacity of the
game leaves the audience spell bound, while the players themselves live in
the vivid Olympia of their actual proficiency and collective grandeur.
Ordinary people can identify with the game, because the tactile nature of the
sport means that the warriors will always do what is good for one another, in
order to win the game. The "other" is clearly demarcated, and so the
real passion is in teamship, and in surrendering one's individualism one
actually hones one's superior gamesmanship. Women's football is something which
is promoted but not practised, primarily because men represent the sport as
that which will emulate the work of the Gods. and the women have only an
ornamental or passive status. In Brazil and Argentina, liberation theology
promoted the training of football stars in the local community churches where
the sons of poor people could aspire to greatness and wealth and power. The
idea of hard work leading to honour is not unknown in Christianity, yet,
the specific aggrandisement that football brings is surely a sign of its
investment in Capitalism. The medieval churches were built on the loot of war
and inquisition, similarly the soccer theatres are an aspect of the
capitalist industry putting its signature on the game. Countries which are poor
often have governments which take the carnival and spectacle of sports to
define how they will organise the resources of labour and management and profit
incentives to make the game do something else rather than just play.
While the world watches, and the stars battle it out, the steel industries and
the cocoa cola and the branded clothes and shoe companies will make their profits.
The urchins who play in the sun and rain will succumb to hours of television
time in order to become passive recipients of the advertising barrage.Cities
will undergo transformation, and the carbon trail to the soccer cities will be
humungous.
Pele will remain the spiritual ancestor of freedom, the icon of resistance
to war, control mechanisms and political silencing. When football stars
become models of behaviour, then every child who watches them on screen, in
live play or in the auditorium, will dream of a day when they too have a chance
to make that difference. Soccer is not about Homo Ludens but also about
glamour, degradation, salvation and rehabilitation. Not surprisingly, for left
leaning states like Kerala and West Bengal, the call to street football has
always been very noticeable. The quantum of energy expended
requires a wholesome diet, and both the Malayalees and the Bengalis have a rice
eating, fish eating culture, where stamina is the index, not girth or height.
Goa has always had football, because the village traditions there too encourage
volleyball and football. The Jesuits in South America have been great
propogators of sports as a stepping stone to the possible dream of
equality for the poor. The tradition instills discipline, rule bound behaviour
as well as hierarchy. Equality is premised in the idea of individual aptitude,
which then allows the trainer to take on a team which he can hone to
perfection, given the autocratic nature of his own choice making facilities about
who can do what best. That decision is for the trainer to make. Oddly, the
acceptance of this is what gives each player his autonomy.